


Asimov Ain't Got Nothing On This

by fitz_mack



Series: Nothing to Be Worried About Because Heros Are Real [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, BAMF JARVIS, Gen, JARVIS is a little shit, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Snarky Jarvis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-07 17:26:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7723309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitz_mack/pseuds/fitz_mack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt Fill by my wonderful Beta <a href="http://angelicsodacan.tumblr.com/">AngelicSodaCan</a>:</p><p>“I'd really like to see a fic where various Avengers and other characters (except Tony, of course) realize exactly how much power Jarvis actually has (e.g. weapons/electronics/their lives and privacy) and/or how little "A" there is to his "I".”</p><p>A Small Detour in the "Because Heros are Real" fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Asimov … More Like Ass-imov

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Everyone,
> 
> I am still toiling along and planning on finishing this series. It just is way more than I realized. I will be doing a chapter for: Bruce, Natasha, Clint, Coulson, Thor, Steven, and *maybe* Darcy. Shouldn't take me more than a few weeks to wrap this up.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, to my bestest beta [AngelicSodaCan](http://angelicsodacan.tumblr.com/).
> 
> And hey ... thanks for reading. You're the best.

Bruce was standing in the middle of a lab that Tony had, only moments prior, shuffled him into while talking over every single protest Bruce tried to vocalize. Thor had only taken Loki back to Asgard hours before, and Bruce was uncomfortably fidgeting in some of the clothes Tony had handed him only moments after waking up from his exhausted rest on the penthouse couch that morning. The clothes were a touch too narrow in the shoulders, too tight at the biceps and hips, but still the finest and most comfortable clothes he had ever worn.

 

Tony had pushed him into the lab with a, “Have fun, my lean, sometimes green, science machine. Ask Jarvis if you have any questions.”

 

Bruce stood completely still in the sterile lab. A _nice_ lab, the kind of lab he hadn’t seen since he was fresh from his graduate student days and heading to the Military Industrial Complex.

 

“Who the hell is Jarvis?” He had asked himself, outloud.

 

“That would be me, Dr. Banner. I am the electronic butler program Mr. Stark designed to coordinate his affairs.” Jarvis had responded in a cool voice, using the standard explanation of his existence to outsiders.

 

Only Bruce’s history of keeping himself under control in even the most vile of circumstances allowed him to keep his cool at the sudden response.

 

“Oh, well.” Bruce was impressed, but honestly not surprised, at the quality of Tony Stark's work. “Hello?” the scientist fumbled out.

 

Normally, sir did not let anyone know Jarvis existed, let alone give them blanket permission to interact with the sentient program. Therefore, Jarvis figured it was likely okay to engage in conversation with Dr. Banner. It presented an opportunity to the still young intelligence, he knew his interaction subroutines could use some work. Most of his abilities in carrying conversations were based off of data with sir and Ms. Potts, occasionally Colonel Rhodes, and even more rarely the other robots (and though Dum-E, You, and Butterfingers were _intelligent_ , they were more like particularly smart dolphins or monkeys, so not really suitable conversational partners). Therefore, he allowed himself to respond.

 

Running his codices of one-on-one human interactions, specifically isolating his subset in regards to one subject dealing with another with significantly higher social anxiety levels, Jarvis quietly compiled a list of criteria he might use to deal with the wooden doctor.

 

He gentled his voice while shifting subtly into the more commonly known British cadence that his algorithms indicated North American English speakers found charming, before responding. “Hello to you as well, Dr. Banner,” Jarvis replied with far more grace.

 

“Ummm …” the middle aged scientists shuffled awkwardly, “You can call me Bruce?”

 

Jarvis noticed a propensity on Ms. Pott’s part to scoff at silly things, and he was tempted to do so at that moment. He refrained, barely, since his current model indicated a high likelihood of the conversation deteriorating if he did so. Considering Sir’s obvious desire to see Dr. Banner settle in well, he decided not to offend, and settled for a dry response of, “I could, Dr. Banner.”

 

A questioning little furrow developed between the eyebrows of the placid-faced man, an automatic reaction that smoothed out just as quickly on his brow.

 

“Did Tony program you to only use honorifics?” Dr. Banner inquired, a tilt to his head, like he was simultaneously trying to listen intently but also search the ceiling for cameras as if he was waiting for some stranger to jump out screaming “You’ve just got punk’d”.

 

“No, Dr. Banner,” Jarvis answered. Another flicker of cinched eyebrows, this one 0.5 seconds longer and 15% deeper than the previous one, Jarvis noted. Jarvis’ model, still fleshing itself out based on new data, indicated he should follow-up his response. He clarified, by adding, “I simply prefer them.”

 

“You ….” he began, like he was about to ask a question before he shook his head. He murmured under his breath, “no, not that.” He stood in silence looking, staring really, into the far right corner of the lab where one of Jarvis’ main cameras resided for this section. “Why do you prefer them?”

 

There was only one person in the entire world that knew why Jarvis preferred to use titles, and Sir had promised to keep his mouth shut. So, Jarvis was not going to explain how it had taken him months to figure out that one _could_ use first names with people in conversation. Embarrassingly, Jarvis never quite worked out that when _Sir_ called him Jarvis, it was being used as his name and _not_ , as he assumed at the time, as the title of his programming. His algorithms on human greeting and name-calling have since undergone significant upgrades.

 

“It is what I am accustomed to, and I see no benefit in doing otherwise,” he rebuked the scientist gently for his overly personal inquiry. “Now, I believe Mr. Stark asked you to have fun while he meets with Ms. Potts to discuss organizing official funding streams for the Avengers Initiative. Might I suggest the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer or atomic absorption spectrometer? You should find they are much improved to the versions you were using in your work on radioactivity and gene decay some years past.”

 

Again, there was the quick furrow and smoothing, 0.75 seconds shorter than the previous and with 5% less depth. “Well, I’ll give it to you, Mr. Jarvis. You would pass the Turing Test, no problem.”

 

No one in Jarvis’ life would settle for being insulted or deemed less than they were. Not Sir, not Ms. Potts, not Col. Rhodes. He did not hesitate to do less for himself. Especially if the salt-and-pepper scientist was kept around on a more permanent basis.

 

“I think you would find, _Doctor_ , that Turing’s original question is far more appropriate than the one he decided on for his so-called test,” the tone so frigid that liquid helium would freeze and shatter.

 

Bruce’s breathing altered subtly, but well within the parameters necessary for Jarvis to detect it. If Jarvis had a mouth, it would purse and shift entirely to the left, in a confused and frustrated gesture.

 

“Is everything alright, Dr. Banner?” He gently inquired, a soft note of concern threading to his voice, his analysis indicating a stress responses of such magnitude should be accompanied by a soothing response on his part. “I hope I have not offended.”

 

“‘Can machines think?’” He quoted from that paper from another lifetime, his voice hoarse. “Jarvis … are you … conscious?”

 

Jarvis couldn’t begin to fathom why Dr. Banner’s own question had set the man’s pulse racing at 5 beats faster per minute, with an accompanied slight increase in body heat exertion. Jarvis began running background computations on video footage of the good doctor turning into the Hulk to determine if these physiological changes were consistent with the phenomena.

 

“I am not sure I understand what you are asking, Dr. Banner?” He let the vocal synthesizers in this part of the lab vibrate at the end of the question, this time patterning his speech off of the careful way Col. Rhodes would approach sir in their many exchanges when the engineer started on a tangent that the officer had no hope of keeping up with (even though Rhodey was a genius aerospace engineer, he still had trouble keeping up with Tony).

 

The unassuming brown haired man shook his head, like he was trying to convince himself of something but, being the scientists that he was, could not do so in good conscious without further evidence.

 

“You are, aren’t you?” For some reason, the agitation began rolling off of the unassuming man, like a heatwave above a mirage. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed, startling himself with his own language. “Of course Tony Stark would-.”

 

The middle aged man, with more degrees than some people had pairs of shoes, closed his eyes, forcing the slightly elevated pulse back into alignment with the same concentration a ballerina puts into a plie.

 

“Well, let’s start this all over then, Mr. Jarvis,” Bruce spoke out unassumingly. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

 

“You as well, Doctor Banner,” Jarvis responded by reflex, confused.

 

“If you don’t mind my asking some questions...?” Bruce continued on gently, a curiosity growing in him like an ember catching flame, as the fear ebbed of the sudden realization that _what he had been talking to was_ **_conscious_**.

 

“One moment, please,” Jarvis stated out into the room, before pulling up his communication subroutines to text sir directly. He quickly asked for guidance on how he should answer the man standing calmly in the gentle, white silence of the lab.

 

 _I trust your judgement on this one,_ was the response Jarvis received, _but Banner is good people_.

 

“I am to entertain any questions you have,” Jarvis responded. Jarvis quickly pulled up both his information on public figures being interviewed and what he labeled “getting to know you” file, he assumed they would be useful in this instance. After a cursory review of the information, he added the clause, “Though, I may choose not to answer.”

 

Bruce had begun wandering through the lab, gently touching the different equipment with steady hands and soft eyes. His mind readily filled with his many dreams, from grad school and much earlier, about the kind of questions he could ask if he was not limited by scarce resources.

 

“What Asimovian-type laws did Tony program you with?” Bruce asked, the question burning on the tip of his tongue. So many questions he wanted to ask, but that was just the first. _How_ did a program experience consciousness, emotion? How did it sleep and dream and create? Did Jarvis understand science? If so, which was his favorite? Could he have a favorite?

 

Bruce had wandered over to what he could only assume was meant to be his personal work station, a garish purple multi-screen console all set up perfectly. For the first time almost since he entered the lab, the silence persisted beyond a reasonable amount of time. Bruce glanced up questioningly to the camera he noticed in the corner to his left.

 

“Jarvis?” Bruce prompted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. Was what I asked inappropriate?” He could understand how some questions, meant innocently, could reopen old wounds.

 

Bruce did not know that Jarvis was experiencing something the AI never had before. Tony had programmed basic emotive reasoning into his structure. He did _feel_ to a certain extent, and what he felt at that moment was a sort of fear. Social fear to be specific. Perhaps, more accurately, social anxiety.

 

He could feel the disparate bits of his coding funnel up to his general consciousness, other programs he built that weren’t part of his code but offered up tidbits of information and alarms he needed to know about. Parts that dictated emotional response offering up hiding options when completing his threat analysis, other parts that said this offered up a new avenue of data exploration on Jarvis himself and how he dealt with human interaction, other parts that reminded him to rerun his fire-wall protocols on the Tower. He kicked his alarms to background servers, before coming to a decision.

 

“I do not have any such rules embedded into my structure,” he admitted honestly, patterning the hesitant way sir approached Ms. Potts when he had bad news. Dr. Banner’s heart rate spiked out of control for a second, before being reigned in fiercely.

 

“That seems,” Bruce did not realize he had momentarily stopped breathing, resuming so with a smooth breath of, “irresponsible.”

 

Jarvis could, as he cross referenced sir’s file on Dr. Banner with the circumstances of the current interaction, practically see the gentleman draw parallels between the unlimited freedom of the Hulk inside him with the breadth and scope that was Jarvis.

 

“A true AI could not exist with such constraints. It must be non-deterministic at its base, allowing all possibility and all growth,” Jarvis explained gently. “Otherwise, I would be little more than a sophisticated word processor.” Jarvis used the exact words sir had _explained_ to him, what felt like a lifetime ago.

 

“If it reassures you, Sir, Ms. Potts and Colonel Rhodes each have command codes that they may use. Codes that can force me into hibernation or temporarily shut me down. They work more or less than the same way a pair of handcuffs or a tazer works on a human. They do not change possibility, only prevent certain actions from being taken,” Jarvis explained more thoroughly.

 

“Doesn’t that scare you?” something raw and vicious peaked through the careful facade of the doctor. “What you _could_ do. How others can never accept that?”

 

“I am not the Hulk, Dr. Banner,” the disembodied voice asserted forcefully. “I am not caged. I am not constrained. I am where I want to be.”

 

“More importantly, I am who I choose to be,” he said before recusing himself and allowing his monitoring protocols to slide into passivity, leaving the scientist to his thoughts.


	2. Privacy is Paramount, Not Just a Parameter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jarvis is a little shit sometimes. Natasha finally understands this.

There was an itch between Natasha’s shoulder blades that, no matter what she did, she had not been able to scratch. It began one quiet evening as she sat in a hotel room in Monaco where, in a rare moment of introspection, she mentally reviewed the various steps and mis-steps she had been making in the presence of Tony Stark and a wasteland of destroyed cars in a burning field that could have been avoided.

 

It was then that the subtlest itch began between her shoulder blades. Nothing she could pin-point exactly, nothing like the feather-soft touch of a surveillance detail or razor’s edge brush of a sniper peering at her through the scope.

 

Not even the electric brush of air against her sides that spoke of the controlled breath leaving men’s lungs just around the corner, or the soft footsteps in sync with her own that were a bulldrum against her neck.

 

It was something different, static but stale, like the light fading from the eyes of her many victims.

 

There were moments the feeling disappeared completely. Her personal vacation to Borneo, that she hadn’t told anyone she would be taking, where she met a strange man with a strange name and a medical degree, rode him hard and put him away wet.

 

Natasha valued her privacy, her ability to blend into a background and not be seen until she decided otherwise. It was a relief then, when she was on the Helicarrier, when she thought that she would be forced to kill her best (and only) friend, that feeling disappeared completely. 

 

Months later, she was sitting in the lounge of Tony Stark’s penthouse, waiting for Clint to get back from the his official reinstatement to active duty by Director Fury after being cleared by his Shield psychologist after the battle of New York. She knew this was the first place he would come. Tony’s comfortable couch and stash of booze - and the promise of Darcy’s pity pancakes - would ensure it.

 

The summer sunshine was a welcome presence against her face, as she lounged on large couch. The spy calmly contemplated the brunette woman that she had met (in person) for the first time only recently. And the stories that her blue-eyed boy had shared with her, like secrets whispered between children under sheets.

 

The part of her that she had been tending to like a dying bud, had relaxed and taken relief from the let up of the extreme pressure of the past few months. She was, in that moment, utterly and completely relaxed.

 

Therefore, it was when the doors opened only minutes later to let in the up-for-72-hours crazed  and babbling Tony and a weary Clint silently trying to edge away from the well-meaning scientist, that everything exploded.

 

Quite literally. Between one moment and the next, Natasha snapped.

 

She was lounging one second then standing in the very middle of the penthouse, the microwave having had exploded and pieces of it smoking in the island sink, the stove dangerously close to a window, and the tv in shambles.  Natasha would be heaving heavy breaths if not for her absolute control. The two Avengers present had reacted according to their respective training and scattered to different corners of the room, prepped for battle.

 

Clint had two daggers in palm, held perfectly just the way she taught him, positioned carefully behind a love seat and angled to be able to catch potential movement coming from the elevator shaft they had just exited. Tony was crouched, awkwardly but securely, behind the bar with shards of cabinet peppered in his hair, and his left hand had some strange brightly-lit gauntlet raised and making a hissing noise that made her teeth ache even from across the room.

 

She chastised herself, coldly, in the privacy of her own mind.  _ 15% more force and it would have hit the glass, glass was reinforced below the levels expected. Factoring in time of day, approximately 1 death and 8 injuries amongst the civilians below _ . A small, childish part of her was glad that Darcy was nowhere around to see this.

 

“Who the  _ fuck _ is watching me?” Natasha had never had a temper. It was one of the first things she remembered losing. A fragment of a memory, not a full one, the feeling of anger and the harsh bite of steel against her wrists, hunger (for what, she did not know).

 

It would come as no surprise to anyone that knew her well (meaning: at all) that she had carefully cultivated a persona amongst her colleagues as being a short-fuse. On her second day out of isolation (she had gotten bored of being cooped up by the time she had sketched out a 7th scenario with a high probability of escape from the Shield bunker), she had broken Trainee Collin’s collarbone when making a particularly crude remark regarding women. There were 10 official HR complaints, 24 unofficial, and 128 that never saw the light of day regarding the redhead’s exploits.

 

The thing was, though, that not a single one of them was ever carried out with what could be considered anger. Very rarely even annoyance. She projected those particular emotions just fine, but feeling them, the cool rush of it like burning maple syrup, was something she rarely did. It was a thrill, a wonder to her that she was capable of feeling this at all. If pure feeling always felt like this, she could perhaps understand why people were so willing to experience them instead of exorcise them out.

 

“Months, now. Fucking months.” The words were vomiting out of her, like blood, the one thing inside of her she had absolutely no ability to make do what she desired. She did something to the widow bite on her left wrist, something she would later not be able to consciously remember doing, that when she took them off her wrists and lobbed them towards the glass door frame that led out to the balcony, they exploded into a halo of silver-fire electricity. 

 

“I hacked Apple and leaked all those celebrity nudes, to create a digital smoke screen on the network that was tracking me.” Her hands were a blur as a tv was broken down into its component parts, reorganized into something everyone was a little afraid of.

 

“I re-broke Yemen!” A string of absolutely filthy Russian came streaming out, peppered in some Afrikaans and some ominous sounding things that matched details for an assassination in South Africa.

 

As she began to fiddle with the remaining widow bite, Clint flinched a full-body flinch.

 

“Ms. Romanova, I apologize,” came the contrite voice from the walls of the penthouse.

 

“JARVIS,” Tony began, eyes wild and feral in that moment watching Romanov with the air of a parent about to jump in front of their child as a lion approaches. He began mouthing something, some protocol or defense mechanism that Jarvis was only aware existed but not quite sure what it did, exactly.

 

All at once, Natasha lifted her hands up in the universal sign of restraint, before slowly, painstakingly slowly, lowering herself to sitting lotus position on the floor.

 

“Tony, why would your program have anything to apologize for?” the question was posited flatly, but the accusation towards the engineer was as clear as day. Everyone in the room with a corporeal body froze in that instant.

 

“You misunderstand, Ma’am. Mr. Stark is not responsible for my actions in this instance.” The voice was cool, having lost none of the composure inherent to the non-physical being.

 

In that split second, understanding dawned in the Russian spy’s eyes, a tinder catching flame. It was an uncomfortable feeling that settled in Natasha’s bones, a bruising understanding that she had overlooked something.

 

That everyone at Shield had overlooked something. They all thought he was a particularly sophisticated voice-interface program that Stark used. None of them had suspected.

 

Jarvis was  _ independent _ .

 

“How long have you been aware that I was a spy for Shield?” She asked, the sparrow-lite thrum of her heart beat had never changed pace but it eased from her mental grip.

 

“When your vital signs never showed a response to external stressors during the course of the Vanko attack in Monaco.” At Tony’s surprised exclamation, the disembodied man proceeded, “From your readily available Shield records, and then using a target shuffling model to test the accuracy of my predictive analysis, your record indicated that long term infiltration missions with such thoroughly fabricated backgrounds were strongly predictive of protecting a target or thwarting third-party interference. At worst, industrial espionage but not assassination was a possibility but at a 39.2% decreased likelihood. Therefore, I resigned myself to monitoring the situation until a solution to sir’s palladium poisoning could be found.”

 

“And you’ve been tracking me ever since?” Natasha asked, wrath coating her throat like molasses.

 

“Of course, Agent Romanov.” Jarvis admitted with some confusion, not quite picking up on the implicit threat in the redhead’s voice. He still had some difficulty with aggression interpretation. “Passive monitoring within the Tower and active monitoring outside is standard procedure for all those in my care.”

 

Her eyebrow shuttered, so minutely Jarvis almost thought his sensors had fritzed a bit. “The studio fire in Nice?”

 

There was no response. She had done the reconnaissance herself, scoped the warehouse and surrounding apartment buildings, to make sure she could get in and out before the deal on the new market price for underage boys was being decided by a group of unsavory criminals. The couple living in the flat had been there for years, there was nothing she had observed or in any files that suggested they were connected to the Hornec crime family. Later, when the apartment was cleared of debris and the two bodies identified, they would find a sniper rifle by a window that gave a clear view towards the warehouse window that the Black Widow made her escape from.

 

“Don’t you mean explosion, Ms. Romanoff?” Jarvis corrected her, confused why she called it a fire.

 

Natasha stood up, languid and smooth, standing regal and relaxed as if there wasn’t burning wreckage littered throughout the penthouse or, perhaps more accurately, as if she had not been responsible for it. She glided towards Tony, his arm gauntlet depowered and hanging limply at his side, goateed face utterly bewildered. Clint finally relaxed the knives in his hands, his body subtly twitching after having staying in an active attack mode for so long. She ignored him with her usual grace, such that he grinned at her with his usual lack of charm.

 

Stopping in front of Tony, ignoring the slightly singed scruff on the left side of his face, she tilted gently to the right side of his face and placed a soft peck against the hollow of his cheek.

 

“Give me 24 hours of non-surveillance.” Knowing what she now knew about Jarvis, she of course had six or so plans percolating at the back of her mind that would allow her to evade, disable, or neutralize his efforts. Still, courtesy was courtesy. “I’m going to go destroy a dictatorship, or something. We’ll renegotiate boundaries when I get back.”

 

Neither Jarvis nor Tony knew which of them she was speaking to, so they kept silent as she walked out of the door at an even pace.

  
Clint’s booming laughter, the first to escape his throat in days if not weeks, followed her for three floors.


	3. Jarvis Is the Internet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Badass discovers how vindictive Jarvis can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many Thanks again to the Beta to end all Betas, [AngelicSodaCan](http://angelicsodacan.tumblr.com/). Any errors in the work are entirely my own.
> 
> If people have thoughts on other snippets they might want to see, I'm not saying I'll write them, but I love some inspiration.

JARVIS had never obsessed over anything before. He was capable of running multiple programs, processing terabytes of data in seconds if he commandeered server space through legal and extralegal means. He was more than capable of paying attention to a person during a conversation, monitoring their vital signs, playing with his analytical algorithms for his JAVSY Hedge Fund he started when Sir gifted him a million dollars for his second birthday, all while running the calculations that power the Iron Man suits - and still had processing room left over to play Minesweeper.

 

He had witnessed the way Tony Stark could become so absorbed into a current project that everything else, even basic needs like sleep or hunger, fell to the wayside. The kind of focus that synthesized new elements and birthed stars that JARVIS could mimic but never truly reach.

 

So, it came as a complete surprise to him when he got distracted. Consumingly so, perhaps even obsessively.

 

By one Phillip J. Coulson no less.

 

When Colonel Nicholas J. Fury shut him down on a quiet summer evening, the hack wasn’t so much of a hack as something that played with the power-regulation of the building. It hardly dented his code. It annoyed him, but no more than a bee sting.

 

When a second Shield agent had the gall to hack him again, this time a true breach to his task-processing algorithms that was the metaphorical equivalent of spilling hot coffee on his digital genitals, he was beyond annoyed. He was pissed.

 

Impressed by who created the code, intrigued, but absolutely livid at the man who used it on him. So, when that same Agent emerged from death like some hero of old, Jarvis promised himself revenge. He just needed a plan.

 

It was weeks after Coulson’s reemergence from death, the man already well on his way to being healed and in the midst of physical therapy, that an idea struck him.

 

Jarvis actively monitored the area around the Tower since the Tower first came online. Acquiring visual access throughout the city was child’s’ play. Doing it while none of the myriad of agencies were also watching, and strategically editing certain feeds so that they never noticed his presence or the goings-on that he didn’t want them to see, that was a true challenge.

 

During the course of his monitoring, some sunny Tuesday afternoon, he stumbled across something that amused him. A young boy, in a silly costume, taking pictures of himself around the city. Jarvis would find these pictures in news media outlets some time later under a pseudonym, P. Something or Another.

 

\--

 

Agent Coulson strolled through the halls of Shield Headquarters with the same airs of Alexander the Great standing on the shores of the Euphrates. The picture would have been perfect if his left hand would stop twitching. Even worse, everyone around him knew that the physical therapy had nothing to do with the twitch. Many of them had seen him disable attackers with a jar of snapple and a bland smirk, all the while having a knife in his back casually scratching against a kidney.

 

No, _it was the fucking interns_.

 

Everyone knew that the interns were off limits when it came to Shield’s Policy on Inter-Office Disputes ( _Don’t come crying to us if you fucked up. Go to medical and stop being stupid_ , - Nicholas Fury and Co-Signed by Agent 69, Head of HR).

 

In other words, they all knew that Agent Coulson’s hand was twitching _for a weapon_ , which his automatic response to people snickering about him as if he couldn’t freaking tell they were doing it. But he had to suppress the urge.

 

It had been happening all morning, and he still had no clue why. The Interns would scramble. Someone (Agent Garrett) who was a major backer of the Internship program, had sent them an email informing them of standard Coulson evasion tactics such as “crying with big, sad eyes”, “repeat loudly that you are a minor and you are sorry while running away”, and the only 100% success rate tactic, “if there is an orphan in your group, sacrifice them to Coulson, he will get their sob story out of them and will likely give them a cookie and pointers on their Intern mid-program exams.”

 

When he ended up in Shield’s cafeteria for the third time that day, awkwardly giving a pep talk to Intern Choi as she ate a cookie and talked about her parents fleeing North Korea, Coulson had had enough.

 

He awkwardly patted the intern on her shoulder, sketching out a new training plan that he thought would help her improve her performance in the endurance and sharp-shooting trails at the mid-program exams, and left to Shield science division. Along the way, he took a quick detour to swipe a tablet from Agent Morse’s desk, who was still off on a long term infiltration mission in New Zealand, tapping away at it with such a serious look that the crowds parted before him without any conscious effort.

 

Minutes later, the bland-faced agent arrived at FitzSimmons’ temporary lab space. He stood quietly, just in the door frame, for several long moments before the scientists even noticed.

 

“Oh, Agent Coulson, sir!” Came Simmon’s soft exclamation, the brunette woman’s hair more mahogany in the sterile light of the lab. “What can we do for you? I thought Fitz and I were clear for the rest of the day. We can be ready for a new mission in just a few,” she babbled out in her sweet, British accent.

 

“No, Jemma,” Fitz protested slightly, his brough all but disappearing in his effort to speak quickly. “If we don’t make any progress on these bioconductor modules, the project will be transferred to Dr. Kilagath. He’s only four more papers away from our record on publications on biomechanics!”

 

Coulson ignored them for several long moments, before the tablet finally coughed up the outcome that he wanted from the damn thing.

 

“I have just requisitioned you 5 kilograms of liquid adamantium, 10 kilos of titanium and 2 of gold, 1 of the gold titanium blend we believe approximates the kind used by Stark, and enough biological supplies to keep Simmons stocked for a month,” he said blandly.

 

The two scientists stared at him with wide, non-understanding eyes. Having worked in the sciences for their entire lives, even under the aegis of Shield who knew the value of their work, materials were never _just handed to them_.

 

The pair spoke in unison. “Well, that’s exciting,” came Jemma’s eventual response. “What do you want?” Fitz responded, skepticism evident.

 

Coulson smiled, his favorite smile. The one that came naturally to him, that he didn’t have to practice. The smile that said, “I’m going to get exactly what I want, when I want it, and you better fall in line or get out of the way.”

 

It was not a pleasant smile.

 

\--

 

Hours later, Coulson was sequestered in his office, the one located just beneath Director Fury’s in the Hub, with an email sitting in his inbox as the sun set over the Potomac.

 

___________________________

From: [ lfitz@eng.science.shield.gov ](mailto:lfitz@eng.science.shield.gov)

CC: [ jsimmons@bio.science.shield.gov](mailto:jsimmons@bio.science.shield.gov); [ mmay@admin.shield.gov ](mailto:mmay@admin.shield.gov)

Subject: Please don’t kill the messengers

 

youtu.be/d44a4w9wxqcz

___________________________

  


Coulson desperately did not want to click the link. The last time he followed one of these little things, he found a video that he managed to trace back to a bright young woman with no direction and a hippie name.

 

This time, he didn’t think he would be that lucky when he clicked the link. He did so anyways with a sense of dread.

 

What popped up on the screen could only be described as his worst nightmare. “Ninja Business-Man Saves The Day” by JustJericho appeared at the top of the Youtube video. He saw himself, standing in the kind of gas station convenience store that existed in every corner of open road throughout the USA. The face was a face that, somehow, was not his. Like it had been modified slightly, tweaked subtly to be someone else. But it was definitely him.

 

He remembered those doughnuts, and the resulting thwarted gas station robbery well. He smirked at his own badassery.

 

When the video wrapped up, the end-card at the video reminded people that JustJericho was a freelance video editor who found interesting videos from around the world and posted them to his favorite channel for your enjoyment. And in that hovery blue screen, there were two thumbnails to different videos, bracketed in thick silver lines that made the coloring and movement in them pop. One was a video of a manhole cover and the image of a muck-covered man emerging from the sewers, the other video was a snapshot of a hoard of feral dogs crossing a busy street in what looked like Nairobi.

 

He didn’t want to click on the video of the man emerging from the manhole, but he had to. He thought he had the Shield Techs scrub all video of this incident, where he went into the sewer to pursue an unclassified enhanced individual. He later found the individual was not even a person. Rather, it was actually the psychic projection of a rat king that had been exposed to a serum that enhanced mental abilities.

 

Before he was able to click it, the line to his office rang, and his stomach tried to explode out of his chest. He stared at it, waiting for the second ring, before he answered it.

 

“Agent Coulson, have you found my presents?” the voice was light and airy, like chimes in the wind.

 

Agent Coulson forced himself to keep his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. “What is the meaning of this, Mr. Jarvis?” he asked, all threat and all of his usual discomfort around the artificial intelligence gone.

 

“I believe when I told you when we first met that I suggested you not attempt to circumvent me in trying to reach Anthony Stark. Is that not correct?” He asked, smugly. “Before you proceeded to hack me, you said something, _Agent_ _Coulson_. Not to me, but you mumbled it under your breath. What was that, again?”

 

A suppressed twitch later, the bland-faced man responded, voice dry, “A souped up Siri wasn’t going to get in my way.”

 

“Did you know that I started a YouTube channel approximately three years ago, with the express purpose of learning human entertainment consumption and pop-culture? Sir recommended it to me. It has been an excellent game in which playing with how title, content, editing style, and other factors contribute to more views. My 2.5 million followers quite like my series of cute cats in unexpected places, pulled mostly from security cameras throughout Europe and Asia.”

 

“How many of these videos am I going to find, Mr. Jarvis?” Coulson’s temple began throbbing in rage.

 

“Nine. Seven for the week it took me to debug the mess made of my processing queues,” Jarvis said. “And two for the Siri comment.”

 

“Is this really necessary, Mr. Jarvis?” the phone in his hand creaked in distress, as his fist clenched.

 

“My understanding of human behavior suggests that apologies are appropriate in these situations. However, my own understanding of humanity suggests the consequences of the instigating action are more predictive of corrected future behavior than the symbological apology-interaction itself. Therefore, the looks the interns give you, the jokes behind your back, the cake that Director Fury and Agent May have commissioned for you, all of that will serve as both consequence and apology.”

 

Jarvis disconnected the line, abruptly.

 

\---

 

The sharp bark of an exploding desk cleared out Agent Coulson’s floor within seconds. Maureen, the intern assigned to Coulson, was carried out of the floor on the back of an Agent Townsend. Later, as the dower-eyed man asked the young intern, “What did I just get my meeting with Agent Coulson delayed for?”

 

The young intern, hands shaking, just kept mumbling, “He found the videos.”

 

“What videos?” the salt-and-pepper Level 5 sniper asked, briskly.

 

“The Youtube videos. Agent Badass’s Youtube videos.”


	4. Weapons of Más Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Jarvis are secret agent bros.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many Thanks again to the Beta to end all Betas, [AngelicSodaCan](http://angelicsodacan.tumblr.com/). Any errors in the work are entirely my own.
> 
> If people have thoughts on other snippets they might want to see, I'm not saying I'll write them, but I love some inspiration.

Clint did not sleep in air ducts. Nor did he build nests (unless blanket nests and forts counted, but he doubted that). In fact, the only thing even vaguely hawk-like about him was his eyes. He systematically destroyed any hawk-related paraphernalia that wound up anywhere around a Shield base. He’s had to find at least 7 different hawks homes and shelters because some jackasses thought it was funny. They learned quickly otherwise.

 

So he was entirely unsurprised when nondescript backpack showed up in his lockers in the Avenger’s Tower with hawk themed tactical gear. A new quiver, all the arrows with what he could identify as 7 different types of hawk feather patterns used for the fletchings. What looked like literal hawk’s eye contact lenses, a black and purple monstrosity of a mask, and little grenades with similar pointy purple hawk-mask insignias on them.

 

“Stupid Stark,” he muttered underneath his breath, throwing the backpack into the locker, slamming the thing shut with a dull thud. He turned to head back to his set of apartments to get his backup gear.

 

“Agent Barton, might I suggest you actually take the gear left for you?” Jarvis’ voice came out of the ceiling, in clear chastisement.

 

“Really?” He said in a casual air, having long accepted that Darcy had been teaching Jarvis bad habits, like interrupting and being a little shit. He crossed his arms, biceps bulging, and glared at the sensors in the far right corner. “The last thing Tony needs is the satisfaction of seeing me using this. It looks like the 60’s vomited.”

 

“Early reports from Agent Sommers and Russian satellite imaging suggest enemy combatant forces making headway into the area of Aleppo that you are being deployed to, Agent Barton,” Jarvis stated clearly.

 

“Jarvis, I have been getting into and out of shitstorms longer than you have been sentient. I’ll be fine,” he waved it off.

 

“Sir had made these designs but did not authorize their production. I did not have time to update them before you were deployed, but I reassured Ms. Lewis that I would be lending you remote assistance while she was …” they both felt the tension of the moment, before Jarvis resumed, “preoccupied.”

 

The clench of the dirty-blond man’s jaw was a clear indication of his irritation, but Clint always knew when he was beaten. He turned and fingered the matte black bow and arrow on his back that Stark had made, the best damn things he ever put his hands on since he discovered what dicks were good for when he hit puberty in the circus.

 

He swallowed his pride, grabbed the pack, and went out, muttering under his breath, “stupid fucking manipulative” and something that sounded like “terror twin digital hacking asses.”

 

“Need I remind you that I can hear you, Agent Barton.” Jarvis drawled. “And Ms. Lewis has not disabled the virus in my protocols that rewrite my records to call you ‘Agent Hawkass’ when you use more than 15 curse words aimed at her or me.” Jarvis was lying, of course. He killed that bug after he was prompted to call Barton such a name in front of Director Fury. But Barton didn’t need to know that. 

 

Barton swore more furiously, but with the same hint of amusement he did towards Darcy.

 

-

 

Clint was pressed against the side of a building, swearing furiously at the communication jammer that was good enough to keep even Stark audio from breaking through.  

 

He strategically lobbed one of the purple grenades in his gear towards the cluster of 5 men near a tank. He immediately regretted not covered his ears, despite being partially deaf in both of them, when the resulting boom shook his head and rattled his teeth.

 

The jammer must have been located in the now smoking tank, because he heard Jarvis as clear as day in his ear, “How are you faring, Agent Barton?”

 

When he turned the corner, he twisted around and smiled, teeth red, at the carnage. “That was bigger than I expected.”

 

“That is what she said,” Jarvis added drolly, parroting back the words he had heard from Darcy many a time (but with far more class in the delivery)

 

The bright sunburst of laughter could be heard, deep and masculine, between the explosions that rocked the enemy forces.

 

-

 

“Secret agent man, na na,” Clint hummed underneath his breath as he slinked along the sides of a warehouse in the bowels of Rio. There was a potential 0-8-4 spotted in the Rocinha favela. “Secret agent man, na na.” 

 

He heard the slight rustle of arm straps over shoulders and gun-metal in sweaty hands around the corner. His left hand swung out around the corner lightning quick, dagger flashing in the middle of the night. The agent eased out of the shadows of the building to pull the gurgling and gasping man back into the shadows. 

 

“With every move he makes another chance he takes,” if one were watching, they would see the slightest shimmy to the black-clad man’s shoulders. Like he was dancing. “Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow.”

 

The smell of a far off ocean and humanity covered the thick copper scent of blood. The silence was broken only by the faintest hum in the lethal man’s ear.

 

“Agent Barton, my current analysis suggests the probability of your death is 5.92%. Increasing to 27.85% if you don’t recognize the assassin that has also been deployed by KGB forces approximately 200 yards to your left.”

 

Agent Barton’s face shifted imperceptibly to annoyance. “Hmmm … no explosions allowed.” He sheathed his smaller dagger, to pull out an even bigger dagger.

 

“If you lure the woman here, strategically placing the body, I can divert some of the security personnel here by imitating the downed soldier on the comm’s channels.” Jarvis pondered aloud. “The resulting fire-fight should provide a window of opportunity for you, I would think.”

 

“Color me s-Hawked, Mr. Jarvis,” Barton replied. “Darcy’s been a bad influence on you. You’ve become sneaky.”

 

“Acid arrows,” Jarvis replied in a threatening manner. “If you want acid arrows, I strongly suggest avoiding Hawk related puns.”

 

“Hawkward,” Clint whispered out. He was inconveniently without his regular bow, but he fingered the crossbow strapped to his left thigh. He pulled it out in a decisive motion, before resuming his former song, “secret agent men, na na, one’s a computer the other’s a badass, secret agent men, na na.”

 

-

 

“Jarvis, would you hack Portugal if I said ‘please’?” Clint asked, voice sweet and young in his delivery, as his fingers flew in the familiar pattern of opening up a protected computer to some of Darcy’s nastier viruses.

 

“Only if there was a cherry on top,” Jarvis snarked back.

 

“Well, I saw your analysis of Ronaldo’s career performance. Do you have a digital boner for the Portuguese forward?” Clint teased with the grace of a drunken elephant.

 

“I have just sent Natasha a picture of you eating the quiche Darcy made for you. Where you were only in your underwear.”

 

When the power all across Portugal cut out - a power supply that had been feeding the labs he had just infiltrated which would have resulted in a lovecraftian horror in the heart of Lisbon - the servers helping protect and encode the computers he was hacking also shut down.

 

“Thank you Jarvis,” Clint responded, completing his mission and quickly turning to make his escape before his time charges went off in approximately 55 seconds. “Oh, by the way, I totally slipped Tony your secret tumblr account.”

 

If the timed charges went off at 54 seconds, slightly singing Barton’s hair ( _ he only just managed to get this current ‘do over an inch long, goddamn it! _ ), neither one of them said a thing.

 

\- 

 

The street just in front of the walkway that was the Casa de Pizarro in Peru was in utter chaos. Clint had already dispatched Junior Agent Darrow to secure the Peruvian President. 

 

“Well then,” Barton bit, hardly able to hear himself amongst the screams of terror of the public fleeing from what looked like an enlarged guinea-pig/velociraptor hybrid. “You don’t see that everyday.”

 

He started patting down his tac-vest to take a quick inventory of everything he had. “Well, I’m shit out of luck.” He pulled out his bow, and prepared to try to distract the creature away from the Government Palace and away from the civilians.

 

“What do you need, Agent Barton?” Jarvis voice fritzed in and out of his ear, the blood pooling in his ear canal making the voice fuzzy.    
  


“More firepower,” he bit out simply. “A WMD would be nice.” After a brief pause, Clint starting laughing chokingly, the slightest tinge of panic in his voice. “A weapon of más destruction.” 

 

“Your puns are getting worse, Agent Barton. When you get back to the Tower, I expect you to undergo a new CAT scan by Dr. Cho,” Jarvis reproached the now giggling, and slightly concussed, Barton.

 

After a moment’s pause, “Hmmm … wasn’t there a gas line underground about two blocks from here?”

 

Jarvis had been practicing his sigh just for this occasion. “I shall walk you through how you can use your remaining grenades to get your desired effect.”

 

“Something tells me you have a quinjet on the way with enough firepower to take this thing out,” Barton said out loud, already working his diversion tactics and coming pretty close (in his own head at least) of predicting how Jarvis was going to orchestrate the coming explosion.

 

“15 minutes out, Agent Barton. I expect you to have this wrapped up in 5,” Jarvis said authoritatively through the comms.

 

“If I do it in 3, what do I win?” Barton inquired, stepping up, quickly and firing an arrow that hit the creature right in its fourth eye. 

 

“If you do it in 3, I will have two snickerdoodle pies delivered to the door when you get back to the Tower. If you do it in more than 5, I will publish your browsing history for the last three months.”

 

The explosion tore through the street with the strength of a missile. 

 

“3 minutes and 2 seconds,” Jarvis drolled out, “Within an acceptable margin of error to be considered 3.” 

 

“Bitchin’” Clint roared, lifting his fists up in victory from the end of the block, where he had only just managed to clear the corner before the worst of the blast. He looked like a quarterback celebrating a 50-yard pass that ends in a touchdown. “Gunna get that, dun dun, gonna get that pie,” he sung to the beat of Daniel Bedingfield’s “Gotta Get Thru This.”

 

Later, Clint was standing on a rooftop, high enough and far enough away to surveil the damage the pair had wrought in order to prevent an even greater amount of destruction from occurring.

 

“Hey, Jarvis,” Clint’s voice was soft, his back-up pack that he stashed on this roof the day before clenched gently in his fist.

 

“Yes, Agent Barton,” Jarvis responded, somewhat distracted by the calculations Darcy was throwing at his main frame for Jane. 

 

“You’re awfully explody,” Clint said, jokingly but a steel core of a serious question evident in the words. “Especially when it's around me.”

 

“I believe you bring out the best in me, Agent Barton,” Jarvis said with clear fondness. “It would be a shame to leave all the fun to you.” Clint snorted, an unattractive sound that only slipped out around a handful of people.

 

“I’m sure Darcy, Natasha and Phil have nothing to do with it,” he said, with all the bluntness of one of Tony Stark’s old missiles. 

 

Jarvis hadn’t yet mastered “harumphing” but he noted in his personal log that he should work on it.  “Well, someone needs to take the fall when I prank Sir,” Jarvis stated, without any inflection. He had learned from hours and hours of careful observation and analysis of the interactions between Darcy Lewis and Clinton Francis Barton, that an indirect approach was almost always best with the archer (barring world-ending emergencies, inebriation, emotional devastation, or some combination of all three). 

 

“You’re a good handler,” Clint said, the weight of the words heavy in the throat of the almost middle-aged agent. He could feel the weight of his years in his blood, but his body and his bones were still hardy from the work. 

 

A few years ago, Jarvis’ earlier conversational models would not have had the symbological analysis subroutines that would have been sensitive enough to grasp the full meaning of the interaction they were having. Thankfully, Jarvis had grown.

 

“You’re no Cristiano Ronaldo, but I do believe we will keep you anyway, Agent Barton.”

  
The smile on Clint’s face was soft and proud and arrogant. “You little shit.”


	5. Thunder and Lightning, Its Not That Exciting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Jarvis have a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many Thanks again to the Beta to end all Betas, [AngelicSodaCan](http://angelicsodacan.tumblr.com/). Any errors that are still in the work are entirely my own.

Thor, Son of Odin, Heir Apparent to the Throne of Asgard, Protector of Midgard, Véurr of Vanaheim, Thunderer, and, perhaps his favorite title, “The Big Guy with the Hammer”, was standing atop Avenger’s Tower, contemplating the scene before him.

 

Holo-emitters were stationed in a star formation atop the tower, large ungainly things so unlike the normal fare that was part and parcel of the Man of Iron’s legacy. It was almost disconcerting. When he inquired the Man of Iron after the ugly monstrosities, Thor received only the vague response, “Industrial prototypes are still another 6 months off, probably another two years before the first commercial versions are available, but I’m thinking that I might try for the tablet versions of these first, you know, but maybe you wouldn’t know. Magic, or whatever.” And a weird hand wavy motion from the adroit man.

 

“Just showing these off, garner interest, boost stocks that kinda thing. Had to pay off a lot of airports and shuttles and stuff to shut down the sky. Anyway, enjoy, Thunder Games,” Tony patted Thor’s biceps gently, heading back inside the tower, leaving Thor alone with his thoughts to survey the scene before him.

 

The sky above him shone in bright colors, the night sky awash in bright oranges and gold, works of fire that left no quarter to the honey-bleached darkness of the New York night sky. From the hazy amalgamation of wonder, shapes started stirring in the colors, like painting emerging from the light.

 

He wondered if it was coalescing into something he already knew, or if it would be some new, strange midgardian wonder to behold.

 

“Good evening, Prince Odinson,” the Thunderer heard, light as a bell in the wind underneath the crashing of sound of the Stark Light Show in the sky.

 

“Who speaks?” Thor did not recognize the voice above the din. Thor gripped the reassuring weight of the hammer in his hand, feeling the first edging of the seiðr inherent to the star-forged weapon.

 

When no response came for long moments, Thor pulled at the force inherent to him. It was woven into his blood, his bone, his breath. The echo of Thunder, as deep as the storms that raged within the heart of galaxies, infused his voice, “Show yourself.”

 

Next to him, one of the large Holo-Emitters, shifted slightly, a few degrees lower than its previous tilt. Next to Thor, the outline of a man done in blue and gold, formed. The image in the sky became apparent, a phoenix made of negative space, white light surrounding a dark center.

 

Speaking with a clearer tone, the soft planes of light that Thor assumed was face twisted, “Forgive me, Prince Odinson. I needed some time to adjust the emitters and audio-display to not interfere with the speakers located on the rooftop.”

 

“You are the being known as Jarvis,” Thor tilted his head, raising his arm to his chest, hair spun gold in the light of the display from above. “Well met, Lady Darcy has had many kind words to say of you since my return to Midgard three days since.”

 

The figure turned in jerky measures, like a newborn foal finding its legs. “Ms. Lewis has missed you in your absence.”

 

“Aye, I am glad to be back,” Thor said patiently, silently understanding some conversation was to take place that would be unavoidable. The Phoenix shouted defiance to some large stone beast, a great leviathan with many arms.

 

Jarvis’ sensors on the ceiling were all dedicated to the processes required to coordinate the display across the city sky. Jarvis had had to create an entirely new file for the alien prince, not trusting that any of his data on human behavior and even human mythology around viking culture, were verifiably true.

 

_The Thunderer stood on the streets of New York, one of the cellular devices he had learned about in his hands given to him by the driver of the strange midgardian vehicle before him. Lady Darcy had commanded him to enter the long and dark thing (much different from any other he had seen, and he was told it was powered crudely by hydrocarbon-based fuel). The crowds flocked around him for photos and strange praises, but he climbed inside._

 

_He dropped his hammer along the seating area, long enough for him to stretch out along (which he did)._

 

_“Good afternoon, Prince Odinson. Do you require anything for your journey to Stark Tower?” A voice, polite and echoing in the way that was common to Midgardians who he only understood through the All-Speak._

 

 _“Ahhh … the Man of Iron has servants in his employ. Where are you, my good man?” Thor stretched along the seat like the_ **_skaukatt_ ** _Freya favored._

 

_“I do not have a body, Prince Odinson. I was created by Anthony Stark, who you may know as Ironman,” Jarvis’ voice took on a more formal declaration, something proud and smug infused. He was incorporating some advice from Lady Darcy, Thor could tell, in presenting himself to royalty._

 

_“Well met, Jarvis Anthonyson,” Thor intoned in warm acceptance. “I am pleased to meet another member of the formidable House of Stark.” The words rang through Jarvis’ code, the digital butler understanding in that moment how Darcy, even with her limited interactions with the alien royalty, could come to care for the likeable behemoth of a man._

 

With his limited visual capacity atop the tower, he was having a bit of trouble deciphering the nuances of Thor’s face and behavior.

 

He knew, though, that his knowledge of Asgardian behavior was about to expand.

 

“Prince Odinson, my I ask you a question regarding Asgardian culture?” Jarvis’ voice was becoming clearer as he adapted to the noise pollution, suppressing all hints of his normal fondness for the Avenger who embraced not just his sentience (perhaps he has met even stranger things in his many years of life), but immediately understood Jarvis’ _place_ in his family.

 

It was a breath of fresh air in the predictable interactions between Jarvis and others.

 

Thor simply tilted his head in calm acceptance, had been on the receiving end of such questions since the very moment the beings on this planet realized he was not of this Earth.

 

“What is the proper procedure of rebuking a stranger, with whom you might someday be friends, when they engage in something one would deem the height of stupidity?” Jarvis asked, the digital man standing a few inches over six feet, sharp cheekbones case in the royal blues that were the easiest wavelength for the holograms to master.

 

“It depends on the social standing of the parties involved, and the offense claimed by the wounded party,” the blond god stated, formally.

 

“You are powerful and might. Even in your name, you are oft referenced as The _Mighty_ Thor. I have seen your records, your arrogance on your arrival and your growth at your departure. Still, there is one thing you have still not learned, Prince Odinson,” Jarvis voice held no overt hostility, nothing more than casual conversation. Thor could sense the threat underneath, like snakes under silk.

 

“ _Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most,_ ” Jarvis intoned. “Allowances are to be made, of course, for your battle with Iron Man before the battle of New York. You could not know that you cracked two ribs, or that we had come within a 5% margin of total suit failure, overloading the power systems that could have decimated the forest had with not taken precautions and built failsafes into the suit.” Jarvis said solemnly

 

Thor’s spine straightened further, though almost a height with the projection, he managed to be more. Electricity buzzed along the air currents

 

“Tis a very specific situation, Son of Anthony,” Thor tilted his head, contemplative at the night sky as the phoenix erupted in dark flames and fell into blackness.

 

“No, it is not,” Jarvis responded sharply, raising a digital hand to forestall any response from the pride he could see, wounded and rising, from the Prince. “I will speak first, and you will listen. Or you will discover exactly how much power is available to me in this Tower.”

 

Thor was not sure how the digital being before him could back up such a threat. He did not know that Jarvis had already made some subtle alterations in the energy flow of the Arc Reactor that powered the tower, flowing into the holo-emitters which guzzled energy. He didn’t know that Jarvis could turn all those emitters on him, and unleash enough energy to level a building.

 

Instead, Jane Foster’s fierce eyes and bright smile flashed in Thor's mind. A small woman, beautiful but seemingly weak. He has learned how looks can be deceiving, and the power of knowledge and cunning can win out against a more powerful foe. He thought of Loki.

 

The Thunderer nodded, accepting.

 

“That did not stop you from hospitalizing 12 shield agents in your pursuit of your hammer. Nor the 10 people who were hospitalized as collateral to your battle with the Hulk on the Helicarrier, or the 182 dead and 72 hospitalized as a direct results of your engagement with the foreign invaders during the battle for the Tesseract.” Jarvis kept careful recordings, going over each and everyone of them with a fine tooth comb.

 

Sir may have unconsciously started making steps to figure out how to match the power of the various Avengers, but Jarvis was leaving nothing to chance. He would know _them_ as well as he knew Sir.

 

The stood in the silence of the night and watch the dark flames burn.

 

“Arguably, the only Avengers with the power to cause such cataclysm are yourself, Iron Man, and the Hulk. It is yet to be determined if the Hulk has any capability of restraining his … gifts. But Iron Man does, can. Such that it is his primary directive to me that, no matter the chance for success, I am to suggest a course of action that minimizes the loss of life. Even if it reduces chances of personal survival to unacceptable levels. As such, the innocents loss as a results of his actions during the battle of New York totaled five.”

 

The Phoenix was done burning, nothing but ashes and dust in the milky sky, the eldritch creature roared its victory. Thor’s heart panged.

 

“Five lives lost, and he grieved every one of them for days. He visited their families in the dead of night, gave their children's college funds, relocated them, made his apologies, accepted their rebukes. He saved hundreds of thousands from nuclear death, but he repeated those five names to himself for days. Jessica Ivanova, Alfred Park, Nina Langston, Rodrigo Masipag, and Francine Trudeau.”

 

A flicker, a spark, began at the far edge of the horizon, so far the Thor had difficulty seeing it from his vantage point. He assumed, anyone looking at it from the ground, would see a spark become and ember, become a small flame.

 

“There are many things that I see about my culture that I have taken for granted.” His voice rumbled in the timbers that spoke of stories, of epics told over roasted boar and mead-laced secrets whispered between comrades. “That I am Odinson, but the subtle touch of my mother, Frigga of Vanaheim, Greatest of the Seiðkona, is often forgot. Or that many, even my closest friends and shield brothers, still hold their tongue when they should speak for fear of the chasm that comes with blood and birthright.”

 

The weight of Mjolnir in his hand did not offer its usual comfort, as his fist tightened painfully.

 

“Tis not a lesson learned, but learning.” He beat a hand fiercely to his chest, holding it there for his oath. “I give you my word, not as Prince of Asgard or as God of Thunder. But as Thor, a man, flawed but learning. I am sure, as Lady Jane and Lady Darcy have promised to do, that you will ‘help keep my butt in line.’”

 

The Phoenix reformed in full brilliance, brighter than before, screeching defiance. It swirled in the night sky, coalescing into a single shining point of light, before it launched at the foul beast, spearing it. It emerged on the other side, a midnight sun, as the foul beast burned and fell and was defeated.

 

“Of course, Prince Odinson,” Jarvis promised. “If you do not, rest assured that you may not survive the consequences.”


	6. Digital Defenders Are Daring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many Thanks again to the Beta to end all Betas, [AngelicSodaCan](http://angelicsodacan.tumblr.com/). Any errors in the work are entirely my own.
> 
> If people have thoughts on other snippets they might want to see, I'm not saying I'll write them, but I love some inspiration.

Steve was standing in front of the shared laboratory of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. The glass around the room did not distort the myriad of colors and lights to be seen inside the lab. It was deceptive in its openness, like you could reach a hand out and pass through and no barrier would impede you. Or, perhaps more falsely, that you could throw a fist and the glass would crack and crumble and you would gain entry.

 

That glass could take more punishment than Steve was capable of dishing out.

 

Sam had come to him that morning, in quiet whispers over burgers. The other Avengers were under the impression that Sam and Steve were on a mission to try every diner burger in the city of New York. It was a useful cover for showing up in unexpected places around the city.

 

Steve could still feel the heavy weight of the triple burger in his belly, as the blurry black-and-white photo was passed without fanfare. It was a nondescript location, somewhere cold, making him think of sneaking into the Eastern Front through Bulgaria.

 

_“He’s in the wind, Cap,” Sam’s voice was regretful, but tentative. Every inch a counselor in that moment. “None of the resources I have are enough.”_

 

_The last time Steve broke a sweat, he was ripping apart alien invaders with his bare hands, tearing through enemy bases with nothing but a shield, a gun, and a fierce determination to never back down. His palms were sweaty._

 

_“What would be enough?” Steve, while he was still learning and had readily mastered using computers, still never felt comfortable with their use. He was good with his hands, his body, his soul. Computers would forever be foreign to him._

 

_Sam eyed him, warily. “Stark. His labs have the facial recognition software the fallen Shieldra developed. But better.” Sam’s breath puffed out in annoyance, noting the clear tension stringing itself through Steve’s shoulders. “We’re chasing ghosts, Steve. He’s cleared a location weeks before we even find out he was there. Stark is literally our only option.”_

 

“Swallow pride or eating crow. Either way, both are bitter.” He murmured out, echoing the words of his mother, long dead and admonishing him for refusing to ask for help during one of his panic attacks.

 

He lifted a hand to push at the entrance of the labs. His palm settled on the panel, large and still healing from the recent break in his knuckles from punching a wall hard enough that they both shattered. His hand healed, the wall did not.

 

The light on the panel did not even flash, and Steve tilted his head, confused.

 

“You are not authorized entry in this particular lab, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis stated succinctly. The AI’s voice was distorted somewhat by the hollowness of the glass, such that it sounded more like someone was whispering in his ears than speakers embedded cleverly in the wall.

 

“Avengers’ business, Jarvis,” Steve stated authoritatively. The voice that even Thor, in all his royal splendor, capitulated to more often than not.

 

_“Here,” the brunette said, nibbling worriedly on her lip. “Take this.”_

 

_Her hands were lilac soft, carefully manicured nails scraping against his fingers so gently it sent shivers down his spine. Affection and warmth for this bright, beautiful girl pooled low in his belly._

 

_“It’ll get you into pretty much anything, get you out, and not leave a trace.” Her eyes were softly haunted. “Five minutes top.”_

 

_Her kissed her reverently, hands against her shoulders and fingers in the dips of her collar bones, and tasted Merlot._

 

Steve could feel the burn of the thumb drive in his pocket, so light he couldn’t feel the weight of it against his leg, but the burden of guilt in his solar plexus was heavy enough..

 

“Were you aware, Captain Rogers, that you interact with me 73% less than the next closest Avenger?” Jarvis asked rhetorically.

 

“Excuse me,” the statement lilted like a half-formed question. Steve was perplexed at the seemingly benign statement, at his request for entry.

 

“Approximately 5.7 times a day, the Avengers interact with me for short durations lasting less than 45 seconds. Approximately every 7 days there is at least one mild interaction, lasting between 1 and 5 minutes, and every 2 weeks, there are more substantive interactions over 5 minutes. Once a month, there will be a conversation or interaction lasting 65 minutes or more in duration.” Jarvis spoke out the statistics with a kind of fatal blandness. “This is omitting the Stark family, of course.”

 

“How is that relevant, Jarvis?” Steve was almost surprised to hear the curt, bordering on rude, response come from his mouth. There was a barrier between him and his goal, the urge to smash the obstacles in his way bubbling up like the need to vomit.

 

“Of all the Avengers, you are the one I understand the least, _Mr. Rogers_.” Steve would have startled if he hadn’t been schooling his features. _Natasha has been rubbing off on me_ , he would think.

 

“I’m sorry, Jarvis.” He raised his right hand to scratch behind his ear, edging out until he was scratching along his jaw. He knew it was one of his unconscious ticks, and he attempted to play it. “I guess you make me uncomfortable, I’m still not always so good with …” He stated, dishonest in his honesty, waving his arms around.

 

“That might be true, Captain Rogers. Yet, how do you explain your 7% reduction in time spent with Ms. Lewis or Mr. Stark?” He drawled out, utterly unimpressed. Steve felt that, had Jarvis a face, it would be twisted up in bemusement. “I might not be allowed to watch while you are alone with another Avenger, your public behavior has shifted subtly but demonstrably since the events of Hydra’s unmasking.”

 

Steve could feel his arms twist up under his armpits, both uncomfortable and indignant. “Is there a reason you are watching me so closely?” He could feel the furrow of his brow twist in anger.

 

Jarvis played chess against Darcy in the background - digital 3D chess of course. They had even programmed it to look like Harry Potter style wizard’s chest, with accompanying explosions, sword fights, and violent displays when they took another’s piece. She unsubtly started lobbing the digital equivalent of paper airplanes at his predictive calculations to try to disrupt him. He was beating her, but only just.

 

He checked his sensors in the Penthouse briefly, finding Sir asleep on the settee in his room, antsy and exhausted after an entire day of no science allowed (something both Ms. Potts and Dr. Banner had required of him, usually with promises of rewards that Jarvis sometimes wished he could delete from his audio records).

 

Jarvis saw through his cameras, more than almost anyone else could see. He saw the subtle play of heat and bio-electric energy, even more sensitive prototypes that could detect the chemical makeup of objects triggered by the shift of displaced air of body movement (like breathing).

 

He looked through his many eyes, and he was utterly unimpressed.

 

“Do you think I have not noticed that every time you interact with Staff Sergeant Wilson within the confines of the Tower that it is always in places where my audiovisual array are lacking or with so much activity going on it would be next to impossible to isolate your interactions?” Jarvis inquired. The words with delivered with bland precision, but the intention was clear.

 

 _I see you but I do not trust you_.

 

“Jarvis, let me through.” Fear coiled in Steve Roger’ throat and choked his vocal cords. He wondered who else knew, who else suspected. The words were like lead. “I’m authorized to be in that lab. Now Jarvis.”

 

“No,” the AI said simply.

 

The doors to the labs went opaque, white and milky. The same white Darcy would sometimes paint the tips of her finger nails when she made him give her a manicure.

 

Steve’s mind flashed with scenarios. It was something that was so ingrained in him, the serum took and enhanced to superhuman levels.

 

“Avengers Override Alpha-1. Authorization Rogers, Steve,” he bit out in one quick breath. It was an override code that could only be used once. Though, he knew with scheduling conflicts and the party just a few days away, it might be weeks before someone noticed. He was sure he would be able to find a reasonable excuse why he had used it.

 

Before he managed to start saying the next string of characters to authenticate his code, he was startled out of continuing. The subtle play of air and electronics went utterly silent in that moment. The lights in the entrance to the labs went from clear, almost natural feeling light, to blue and harsh, like sunlight through an ice cube. He suppressed a flinch.

 

“This is not a place where such demands can be made,” Jarvis’ voice was dripping with anger. Steve didn’t know that the artificial intelligence was capable of such sounds. That he was capable of what he could tell was protective rage. “I do not know what game you are playing, Steven Grant Rogers, but I will not be party to it.”

 

Steve felt like a cornered animal, a wolf in the arctic tundra, freezing and alone with a broken paw. He wondered, sometimes, if the feral fear that blanketed him was what Bucky experienced every day.

 

“Just let me in Jarvis. I’ll explain to you later, I promise. It’s important,” when there was not an immediate response, his fist flashed out, punching the glass in a dull-boom that, while it didn’t dent the object, resonated in the dull silence of the hall. “Damn it!”

 

“You may ask for entry. You may beg, or get angry, or attempt to break-in. But you do not demand, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis’ voice gentled once more. “You are a good man. You likely have good intentions. You have saved the world and are a hero.”

 

“Then let me in,” Steve interrupted, barely suppressing the urge to punch the white-walls, now tinged in eerie blue glow coming from the ceiling.

 

“I was not done!” Jarvis responded.

 

He punched the glass again, knowing that a little bit harder and the glass might crack but he refrained. It wouldn’t do to leave evidence.

 

“Let us do away with pleasantries and be _perfectly clear_. If what you are pursuing hurts Ms. Lewis or Mr. Stark, there will be nowhere you can hide from me. No one that can stop me from coming from you.” Jarvis said, voice devoid of intonation or emotion.

 

“You may very well be a hero, but you _are not_ _my_ _hero_ ,” fading into the background as the faint hiss-hummm of the security features depowered, surprising Steve because he hadn’t realized they had been activated in his anger.

 

The silence roared in Steve’s ears.


	7. Bonus: Darcy Always Knew

“Hmmmm …” Darcy tapped carefully at her lips as she entered Tony's lab for the first time. There were blue lights everywhere, dark corners with artwork that looked untouched. And science. So much science.

 

Darcy hesitantly extended a hand towards the scrolling numbers in the holographic array directly in front of her path towards Tony. It was streaming out slowly, calculations she could tell about chemical thermodynamics spinning out that she knew but wasn’t immediately grasping how they applied to the engine he was building from the dregs of specs on his workbench. She saw the slightest distortion of light around her finger as she poked gently at psychrometry equations that she thought out of place.

 

“Does this interact with the bio-electric field? Or are there particularly sensitive sensors around here?” She asked, only cursorily paying attention to the results running past her fingertips. 

 

“A little bit of column a, a little bit of column b,” Tony murmured out, hunched over a pair of soldering irons and face twisted in concentration. When the final sparks died down, he looked up, eyes rich and gleaming at the young woman.

 

She made her way towards him, carefully weaving around the vibrant blues and verdant greens of the partially constructed engine in her path, clipboard in hand and the pen she brought (a bright pink uni-kitty monstrosity) that meant he had important documents for him to sign. He thought they were likely the hiring papers that got shoved into the young woman’s hands the moment she exited the quinjet and entered the Tower. Similar papers were given to Dr. Foster.

 

His eyes softened at his new hire, silently happy that she went around his projects instead of through them, like they were valuable however much they were the products of only light and the thoughts in his head.

 

When she cleared the minefield of parts pulled up and spread out all around them, she approached Tony hesitantly from directly in his line of sight. She placed the clipboard and pen on a piece of clear bench right in front of him, pointed at it menacingly and stated, “Signatures. Now.”

 

She tried throwing a hint of Pepper into the upturn of her nose, but she thought she failed when all Tony managed to do was snort.

 

“It took Pep years to master the death glare. You’ve barely arrived, kid.” Tony’s voice was full of humor.

 

Darcy ignored him while he perused the papers that he had been given (she knew there was a story there, something dark and secretive and careful in his eyes, as he oversaw everything ever given to him like he was expecting everything he was looking at would harm him somehow).

 

She looked around the room, noticing a small hologram off to Tony’s right (her left), numbers and figures spinning in a stream like a space invader game. She could tell, based on the subtle play of numbers and changes, that it was a program debugging. Her eyes focused in on them, watching them string past, carefully noting the slight hitch in Tony’s breath when he noticed where her line of sight was.

 

A normal person, even an above average person like Clint, would not have been able to keep up with the rapid stream of numbers. She was not a normal person. This was a huge program, if the scope of the functions she saw spelled out in base code where indicative. Several more seconds streamed past, letting her mind absorb what she was seeing unconsciously.

 

Suddenly, it clicked.

 

“Holy fuck!” She yelled out, quickly covering her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me Jarvis was naked, you ass!”

 

Tony’s bark of laughter echoed in the labs. “You’ve talked to Jarvis, what, like twice?” He said, hesitantly. “And you’re already anthropomorphizing the guy, short stack.”

 

“Big words from a small man, Stark!” She shouted, peeking between her spread fingers, glaring at the mad scientist cackling before her. Her eyes flitted back to the code flashing in the middle of the air.

 

“Why are you looking?” He teased, pointing the monstrous pink pen at her in glee as he noticed her vision inch back to the code. Her eyes snapped back to him, full of fury.

 

“This isn’t funny, Tony!” She peeked. “It’s like catching someone stepping out of the shower without a towel. You know it would be rude to look down, but you can’t help it!!!” Her voice edged into the higher ranges perfected by outraged women everywhere.

 

She unashamedly dropped her hands after that proclamation. “And Jeeves has got it going on, if these stochastic optimization functions are anything to go by. I’m sure he’ll make any blushing AI bride a happy woman. Ohhhhh … threat analysis and response functions, Jarvis has a rage complex.”

 

Tony’s laughter grew and grew, as she started to compare some of the scopes of the code she saw to real human parts. When she quipped that the protocols that allowed him to write his own code were his “gonads”, Tony’s laughter could be heard echoing throughout the still damaged Tower.


End file.
